This week we begin again the annual cycle of reading the Torah with B’reishit – Genesis 1:1.
Why does the Torah begin with creation? If the Torah is the story of the Jewish people, why not begin with Abraham, the first Jew? Or why not begin with Moses and Mt. Sinai, when the Israelite people accept the yoke of the commandments?
Different answers to this question have been proposed by commentators. One suggestion is that The Torah begins with creation to demonstrate God’s universal power and dominance over all things, that God is the God of all and not just the god of the Israelites. (Midrash Tanchuma (Bereishit 11, Buber ed.))
Another suggestion is that beginning with the creation of all peoples demonstrates that we are all connected, all descending from a common ancestor, and therefore are all equal, all created in the image of God.
RASHI has a different explanation:
For should the peoples of the world say, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations,” they (Israel) may reply to them, “All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed, He gave it to them, and when He willed, He took it from them and gave it to us."
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, explained: if we see the main theme of Torah is the promise of the Land to the Israelites, then the first verse of Torah must be related in some way to the promise. Why do the Israelites need a land of their own? Because the central purpose of Torah is not personal salvation, but the creation of a just society. It is communal, not individual. If we are to create a just society, based on the principle established in B’reishit that we are created in God’s image, then we need a place in which to create this society. Israel is that place. As Rabbi Sacks says, a sacred land for a sacred society.
(See https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/bereishit/creation-and-israel/ for a fuller discussion).
-Rabbi Bonnie Margulis
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